Maxwell House: May 2024

Friday, May 17, 2024

Lucy's First-Ever Track Season

We (Ben, Emmy, and myself) have been telling Lucy to try track for years . . . and she finally did this year. She maybe even surprised herself that she was actually pretty good! :) Lucy's events included the long-jump (which, despite her lack of body length, she was able to always be in the top 1/3 of jumpers) and everything 100-meter related. Such as: the 100-meter dash, the 4x100, and sometimes the 800-meter medley (where she would be one of the two 100-meter runners). She made a mistake her first meet (ever) on the medley and was kind of banned from doing it again. . . lame.

Lucy was the fastest 100 girl on her team/from her school. So that was pretty exciting! Of the four meets they had, Lucy took 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, and then 4th overall in the 100-meter dash. So awesome!!! Again, her long-jumps were typically in top 1/4th or 1/3rd. And her team always won the 4x100. :) So a pretty great season, especially considering she had never done anything like this before. She had a lot of friends who did it as well and just had a really fun season. She plans on doing in high school - yay!

P.S. Not track-related, but Lucy-related: Lucy received the President's Education Awards Program certificate at her school's 8th-grade awards assembly. You earn this by maintaining honor-roll GPA every quarter in 6th grade and then every semester in 7th and 8th. YAY, go Lucy! She's hoping for a 4.0 this semester. . .

Mother's Day 2024

Mother's Day was nice. I was able to make my own mom a rhubarb pie (with our home-grown rhurbarb) while I was there getting Emmy's car. So that was fun. :)

As for me, that Sunday was nice. We had a brunch for all women at church during our 2nd-hour meetings and so that was a fun break from Primary. Ben and I took a nice walk that afternoon in the beautiful spring weather. We got to visit with Miles - yay! Jonas bought me a lovely bouquet of flowers. Emmy didn't bring her phone in with her to church (which I have suggested on multiple occasions . . . I didn't say anything on this particular Sunday, but she did it, I know, to make me happy). Emmy also made her delicious chocolate lava cake for dessert. Lucy helped with dinner - making the grilled cheese sandwiches. We had the missionaries over for tomato soup and grilled cheese and it was a nice evening. :) Ben cut some delicious smelling lilacs from our backyard and also got me my favorite lemon-dipped almonds.

The girls working on dessert and sandwiches. :)

My beautiful bouquet!

And here are the questionnaires:

Question 4, hehe.

EEEEK! I am dying at Emmy's response to question 7. No way am I as rude as she is to Lucy! I like yell at Lucy twice a year . . . not twice an hour. Haha. Hmmm, that was quite shocking and luckily no one else put that down, aiyiyi. At least she redeems herself (and myself!) with question 8 . . .

Good answers. :)

Odds and Ends

Jonas got a turkey tag and caught a HUGE one his first day out - and within the first hour, ha! He was totally excited about it! He was going to have it mounted . . . until he found out the cost. Now it's just bagged and sitting in our freezer . . . sigh. I usually gasp or slightly scream out every time I open the freezer because I forget and then see some feathers. Yuck. But it was a beautiful turkey for sure and he and Ben and planning on eating it at some point - hopefully sooner than later so I can get it out of my freezer ha! But well done Jonas.

My friend and I went on my favorite local hike - the Ouray Perimeter trail. As always, it was beautiful and awesome. My calves may or may not have been sore for days afterwards . . . welcome to hiking season!

Then this happened . . . Emmy totaled our Ford Flex. She was devastated. :( She made a U-turn right in front of our house (probably a bit faster than necessary per her) and ran into the curb. The curb broke off the wheel and broke the brake line. So she had no steering and no braking . . . and ran into our neighbor's parked car. :( Sadness. I was at work that morning but Emmy got Jonas and he helped line up the towing. A friend and her mother (Layla and Holly Lambert) also came and helped with the situation. As for me? I didn't find out until I got a text on my phone at work at about 11 from USAA (our insurance company) saying my claim had been processed. Huh?! I thought it was a mistake . . . until I clicked on it and it mentioned towing of the Flex. I texted Emmy and got back a dramatic "Oh my gosh I am so so so sorry!!!!!!!" reply. :) I immediately called her and she told me she was okay but felt awful, etc., etc. She had a headache and so I told her to just go home. Anyways, she was scared to tell us - when, in fact and if I do say so myself, I (and Ben) was quite chill about it. Accidents - even dumb ones - happen. I hope this is a learning experience for her. The two weeks without a car for Emmy was pretty rough on all of us, haha. We ended up getting $3500 for the Flex, which is about $3300 more than Ben was expecting. (In all honesty, it was almost a blessing - especially as Emmy was okay. The Flex was falling apart and who knew how much life it had left - but definitely not a lot.)

Oh, Lucy was also in the car because Emmy was taking her to school. Lucy's comment: "Oh, I guess I will have to ride my bike today," and she was off. :)

We knew Emmy would need a car and so we started looking. KSL is always a good place and lo and behold Emmy and I found a car that we loved: a MINI. Long story short, I took the train up on a Wednesday afternoon and my dad picked me up in Provo at 10:30pm. It was my first time on the train and while it was slightly sketchy, it was also pretty chill. On Thursday, my parents came down with me to SLC and I test-drove the vehicle (with my mom). It seemed okay and in pretty good condition (with a few known issues we would need to resolve) and so I made the purchase. (Emmy will get a job and pay us half.) My parents took me out on Thursday to a delicious local restaurant and we had a really nice time together.

Cute - both my mom and the car!

Adorable head-shot. :)

The interior is really nice!

I drove home the MINI on Friday and all went well! Emmy (and her little sister) were both so excited. :)

That weekend, the carnival came to down - as it does every year. It's HUGE here - like, everyone goes. I am always amazed at the turnout because it's soooo expensive ($30-40 per day), but it's also like the only thing that happens fun in our town for kids, so I get it. Our three kids went Friday night. Each came home and reported to us that, yes, they had fun. But also that they felt super sick from riding all the ride. But, yes, they were all planning on going back again on Saturday - which they all did do. Haha.

Lucy took some pictures:

Ruby (Lucy's bestie) and Lucy.

Alaina (another one of Lucy's besties) and Lucy.

Looks like Lucy even caught up with Aby and Jonas - fun! (Side note: Jonas went on Saturday and pretty much hung out with Oliver, Aby's 8-year old brother, for 5 hours there. What a good kid.)

Fun (and not-so-fun) stuff.

Ironman 70.3

A lot has been happening lately and so I have a lot to catch up on! Ben's biggest happening was the Ironman 70.3 in St. George, Utah. (A 70.3 is also called a half-Ironman. The full Ironman distance is insane! The half is partially insane!)

Ben didn't decide on doing this event until early January - limiting his training period to about 4 months. Which is a lot in a little time, but he did good with his training and it paid off in a well-done race for him!

Just Ben and I went out for this and it was kind of nice with just the two of us. The kids probably would have been really bored so it was good they stayed home and we didn't have to worry about entertaining them and could just focus on getting Ben ready and supporting him on the day of the race.

So Ben and I headed out Thursday and got there in the late evening. Friday morning I actually did a bike ride of the Snow Canyon loop - it's the last 10-15 miles (but ended up being 20 for me as I headed out on my bike from our place) of Ben's arduous 56-mile ride - and definitely the most challenging part. I wanted to get an idea of what it was like. It was tough! Once you enter Snow Canyon, it's a pretty good (i.e., steep) incline for the first 3 miles and then that last mile up is a killer. Ben actually drove up and met me at the top and that was fun and a surprise. :) The ride/fly home was pretty fast and exciting.

After that, it was getting Ben all set-up and ready for his race. We did a lot of checking in, dropping off bags, listening to a pre-race meeting, etc. at the Town Square area. We also had to go out to Sand Hollow and drop off Ben's bike there. It was pretty exciting. There were some vendors and such and so we shopped around a bit. Ben ended up renting some pretty awesome fancy bike wheels (carbon frame or something) and so that was cool. We cooked up some delicious pasta and zucchini for dinner and then headed to bed fairly early.

Saturday we got up nice and early - before 4am! We drove to the Town Square and hopped on a shuttle bus for Sand Hollow. We were there by about 5am and then waited and waited. It was kind of chilly (low-to-mid 50s, but no sun yet). I was happy when Ben changed into his wetsuit so I could borrow his sweatshirt, ha.

The pros started their swims at 6:50 (male) and 6:53 (female). The rest of the group entered the chute and water in waves of 2-3 athletes every 5 seconds. The first group began at 7:03 and everyone (about 1,500 athletes) were all in the water by 8. Ben went in about 7:50am. The pros were insane and were out of there in 22 minutes for the fastest of the bunch. They are crazy.

I saw Ben get out of the water and then head out on his bike ride. I then took the shuttle back to town and I had brought my bike and so I rode around to different spots and caught Ben at the various points in his race. It was fun to see him zooming by!

All in all, Ben did great! He felt happy with his swim and said it was just a bit of chaos. You aren't out there calming and gracefully doing your strokes - it's a battle and a wild swim, with Ben even accidentally get punched twice! But he said it was exciting and just made for kind of a new and fun experience while swimming.

Ben was happy with his bike ride and passed probably about 500 people! He felt strong and was about 30 minutes faster than originally expected (due to race excitement - but also to the fancy wheels!) He was surprised his average speed wasn't his goal of 20 MPH, but still felt really good about the ride.

The run was tough - I mean, it's a half-marathon AFTER all that swimming and biking. Aiyiyi. He pushed through it and ran the entire course - but slower than he had anticipated. But it was so hot and sunny by then and so it was just awesome he was able to run the whole thing.

Ben finished right over 6 hours - 6:03 or so. For his gender and overall he was right above the 50% - yay! For his age group, he was about in the top 1/3. Awesome! The most amazing thing to me was that he felt pretty great afterwards (if I had to run 13.1 miles in the hot sun, I would have felt super-sick. . . ). It was a fun day and I was super proud of Ben and this huge accomplishment.

Coming into my parent's place at St. George. Gorgeous.

Whoop, whoop - I had finished the uphill climb in Snow Canyon. It was a beautiful, albeit tough, ride!

Checking in, etc. on Friday.

So many rows and rows of bikes at Sand Hollow!

This was fun - you could download an app and follow Ben. So cool! It wasn't perfectly accurate, but still pretty awesome and helped me know where/when I would expect to see him pass by.